This was the Esperanto Association of Britain's site from 2005 to 2018. You will find its current site at esperanto.org.uk.

EAB News 2010-02-06: JEB Kicks Back In 'Kairdiff'

JEB Kicks Back In 'Kairdiff'

JEB, the youth Esperanto group of Britain, has had a long history,
having recently celebrated its fiftieth anniversary with a hugely
enjoyable cake-cutting ceremony at the British Congress in Salisbury
in 2009. That history has consisted mostly of upswings and downswings
in terms of activity, but it can be said without hesitation that JEB
is currently in an accelerating upswing. One of the characteristics of
the current success is a continuing series of regular meetings which
are held at various locations around the UK, averaging around
four-times yearly. Previously meetings have been held in Nottingham,
Felixstowe, London and other locations. The first meeting of 2010 just
finished in Cardiff and it truly went with a bang.

One of the main reasons for this success was that it coincided with
another welcome resurgence: that of the Cardiff Esperanto
group. Spurred on by a couple of new Esperantists in the area who were
looking to meet other Esperantists and practise the language, the
Cardiff group has been meeting regularly for a while now. Their
younger members are also active in JEB, and so when the national group
was looking for a place to hold their next meeting in February 2010,
the Cardiff troop were kind enough to invite us to their home town, an
invitation that we gratefully accepted.

We arrived at Cardiff on an uncharacteristically sunny Saturday
morning to find that we were already being most generously hosted by a
member of the Cardiff group who met us at the train station and guided
us to the first stop on our tour of the town: Weatherspoon's pub
number one of many. We were greeted there by a constantly increasing
group of lively and enthusiastic Esperantists from all over the UK and
further afield. The total number of participants was 22 which was a
fantastic success and made for an unmissable 'etoso' [atmosphere]. The whole
spectrum was covered from non-speakers interested in the language (or
invited by someone who is), through new young Esperantists meeting
other speakers for the first time, and on to experienced speakers of
the language from many different countries. I counted participants
from at least seven nationalities (and three continents) communicating
freely and naturally together in Esperanto. This also made it a great
chance for us Brits to get exposed to Esperanto pronunciations from
other countries which is an invaluable experience in terms of
progressing in the language.

The Cardiff group took wonderful care of us all, providing us with
detailed local knowledge to help get ourselves situated for the
weekend. After a lively meal in a local restaurant where we took over
the top floor, we were then treated to a highly professional,
educational and witty tour around Cardiff by one of our participants,
an Esperantist based in the city, as she narrated our tour entirely in
Esperanto. After taking in the local sites (including Cardiff Castle,
the Taff River, the canal and some great hidden artwork that we surely
would have missed without a guide) and swotting up on the local
history, the evening's festivities began with much chatting, eating,
laughing and even playing an Esperanto word game or two.

One of the greatest successes to come out of the event, besides the
fun we all had actually attending it, was that it had some attention
from BBC Wales, who interviewed a couple of the organising
Esperantists in advance of the event, and then published a very
positive article about the event on its news website, which was a
great achievement for everyone who was involved.

JEB's habit of moving around the country has proved very successful,
allowing many different people to attend, in particular those
beginners who are interested in the language but are perhaps not yet
ready to commit to a full long distance journey. Another interesting
side detail is that the event had a distinctly modern flavour, with
some of the live organisation during the event being handled by the
micro-blogging site Twitter (used frequently by many of those
attending the event) and with photos available to view almost
immediately by those who couldn't attend. We even received a message
saying that Esperantists from other countries were following the
progress of our event via the internet after having heard about it via
the BBC Wales article (news of that had also spread quickly through
Esperantujo, it seems!).